GH60 Keyboard Project

[komar007]

komar007, you might take a look at the Dox PCB layout files here: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=19227.0

I think the Dox has the Teensy located under the spacebar

For a board that's compact, It's probably best to SMD a MCU onto the PCB. Tho obviously some people are terrified of soldering already in the first place.

The MCU will surely be smd and soldered under the space bar, because there's no space anywhere else;)
The only thing is, we may not be able to support 7bit multi-part spacebar because of that.
Anyone needs any other space bar than 6.25 and 7 units?

[TheProfosist]

komar007, you might take a look at the Dox PCB layout files here: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=19227.0

I think the Dox has the Teensy located under the spacebar

For a board that's compact, It's probably best to SMD a MCU onto the PCB. Tho obviously some people are terrified of soldering already in the first place.

The MCU will surely be smd and soldered under the space bar, because there's no space anywhere else;)
The only thing is, we may not be able to support 7bit multi-part spacebar because of that.
Anyone needs any other space bar than 6.25 and 7 units?

all i have to say is screw the 7bit spacebar ive used 4 separate spacebars for a week now and they MUST go

[komar007]

Ok, so before I get to do the board, here's my proposed image, which shows all possible layouts. It seems this can be achieved, but we'll see how the pads for switches will fit.
Please correct any mistakes now, before I lay out the board;)




Legend:
The basic ISO with 1.25 mods and 6.25 spacebar is drawn gray.
I marked some alternative options with green, they are 1/16 unit (unit = 19mm) smaller on all sides, not to interfere with gray lines.
In some places it was necessary to use blue, where I overlaid them on top of both gray and green. In such case the caps are 1/16 unit smaller on top and bottom, and as large as the green overlay horizontally.

The supported alternatives to gray layout are (can be mixed together):
* ISO layout (vertical enter and complementary "#" (marked green), and shorter left shift with additional key to the left from "z" (also green))
* extra fn/mod/whatever either to the left or right from right shift, making it 1.75u instead of 2.75u (marked green and blue)
* model-m-like 1.5-1-1.5 modifier on the left and right side of the spacebar (7u) (marked green)
* lysol's layout with two 1.5 mods on the left and 1.5-1-1-1.5 combo on the right (spacebar 7u) (marked blue)

[damorgue]

Looks great. Some of those switches in the bottom row will need to be upside down though, because i ma fairly certain that they will interfere with each other.

[Icarium]

Add more switches in the middle! Who needs those huge ass space keys anyway?

[komar007]

Sure, I'll put some more switches instead of the controller. Who needs a controller anyway?

[jdcarpe]

That looks awesome! I'm pretty sure no one but 7bit himself wants the 7bit layout. Let's run with what you have.

[Icarium]

Well, I do!
But I'll never look at anything else anymore once the ergodox is finished.

[hazeluff]

Ok, so before I get to do the board, here's my proposed image, which shows all possible layouts. It seems this can be achieved, but we'll see how the pads for switches will fit.
Please correct any mistakes now, before I lay out the board;)


(Attachment Link)



Legend:
The basic ISO with 1.25 mods and 6.25 spacebar is drawn gray.
I marked some alternative options with green, they are 1/16 unit (unit = 19mm) smaller on all sides, not to interfere with gray lines.
In some places it was necessary to use blue, where I overlaid them on top of both gray and green. In such case the caps are 1/16 unit smaller on top and bottom, and as large as the green overlay horizontally.

The supported alternatives to gray layout are (can be mixed together):
* ISO layout (vertical enter and complementary "#" (marked green), and shorter left shift with additional key to the left from "z" (also green))
* extra fn/mod/whatever either to the left or right from right shift, making it 1.75u instead of 2.75u (marked green and blue)
* model-m-like 1.5-1-1.5 modifier on the left and right side of the spacebar (7u) (marked green)
* lysol's layout with two 1.5 mods on the left and 1.5-1-1-1.5 combo on the right (spacebar 7u) (marked blue)

The right hand shift area is a bit cramped if you do both 1-1.75 and 1.75-1




Might be true for bottom right hand side modifiers as well.

[komar007]

Well, I do!
But I'll never look at anything else anymore once the ergodox is finished.

When I bought my first model m I also thought I'd never look at anything else.
10 keyboards later we're doing the GH KB;)

[komar007]

The right hand shift area is a bit cramped if you do both 1-1.75 and 1.75-1

Show Image

EDIT: quoted badly;)

Then we can decide for just one of the options, but I think I have even worse situations on the left of spacebar and it did look doable on paper;)
After I have the first prototype of pcb produced we'll see if that doesn't make the board too flimsy and then maybe remove some options if necessary.

Also, in places where it won't be possible to provide holes for pcb-mount pins (because they're covered by the mounting hole of a different switch) we can add two pads in places where the diode goes, and make it possible to attach the switch more firmly with a piece of wire.


EDIT2: maybe let's not make the lack of 7bit spacebar support official until R4 ends...:P For now let's assume it may be doable.

[damorgue]

Looks great. Some of those switches in the bottom row will need to be upside down though, because i ma fairly certain that they will interfere with each other.

I mentioned the solution there. Just have some of the switches upside down, like I believe some of the switches in the Phantom are. This resolves the issue of them being to close to each other and interfering.

[komar007]

Looks great. Some of those switches in the bottom row will need to be upside down though, because i ma fairly certain that they will interfere with each other.

I mentioned the solution there. Just have some of the switches upside down, like I believe some of the switches in the Phantom are. This resolves the issue of them being to close to each other and interfering.

Unfortunately putting them upside down will only fix pad collisions, but the main hole is in the center, so after a 180 degree rotation the mounting pins don't change at all:/
But you've just given me another idea. We can mount some of them at 90 degrees and this may remove the collision of pins;)

[damorgue]

Yes, sorry, I meant that. The ISO enter of the Phantom is 90 degrees rotated I believe.

[komar007]

So I've placed all the switches an everything seems doable, I see some problems with stabilizer holes of ISO enter, they may overlap here or there, but it shouldn't be a problem, I'll think about it later.

Now I have an important question: what about the spacebars?
Spacebars are crazy as for stem placement, so the question is: which are we going to support?
How far apart are the stems on 7u spacebars and where is the center stem?

[damorgue]

Spacebars are crazy as for stem placement, so the question is: which are we going to support?
How far apart are the stems on 7u spacebars and where is the center stem?

List of space bars:
http://deskthority.net/wiki/Space_bar#6.25_units_.28118mm_wide.2C_3_mounts.2C_50mm_apart.29

[komar007]

Ok, so I'd say:
* 6.25u: there is one possible position for this spacebar, so we make one center switch for it and one off-center + two stabilizers 100mm apart; we cover filco, poker, ducky, etc., G80-3000 and R4 SPACE
* 7u: there are two positions, so we provide 2 additional switch footprints, bot in the middles of respective spacebars and two pairs of stabilizers, each 6 units apart; this covers cherry and R4 SPACEOLD

[IvanIvanovich]

Very cool. I am glad to see it may be possible to do it the way I wanted without interfering with what others want. I hope some others get on board with that so it is not dropped. Please make my dreams come true GH!

[nntnam]

Very interested here!!!

[komar007]

Can we drop support for this spacebar?

6.25 units (118mm wide, 3 mounts, no center mount)
3 mounts, two mounts 50mm apart from center, one mount 12.5mm to the right.

It is super-close to another footprint, and drilling holes that overlap partially may not be possible.

[jdcarpe]

Yes, we don't need off-center stem 6.25. This is no Cherry board.

[Tenkey]

Assuming we're using the teensy controller here, is it possible to solder the components directly onto the pcb? Just saw this in the dox kb thread and thought it would make it look much cleaner. Although this would require some pros to do it i guess thus adding up to the cost.

[komar007]

Assuming we're using the teensy controller here, is it possible to solder the components directly onto the pcb? Just saw this in the dox kb thread and thought it would make it look much cleaner. Although this would require some pros to do it i guess thus adding up to the cost.

That's exacty what we're doing here;)

[jdcarpe]

Since we won't have room for a Teensy here, we will source the SMD controller chip (ATmega32u4) and have it soldered to the PCB by the fab.

[jdcarpe]

komar007, you are working like a madman to make this project a reality. I want to thank you for that, and to let you know that I really, REALLY appreciate your help!

[komar007]

Thanks, jdcarpe.
I want to thank you too, because I've wanted to realize just that for a year and couldn't get down to it. Now I have the motivation:D

[hazeluff]

Looks great. Some of those switches in the bottom row will need to be upside down though, because i ma fairly certain that they will interfere with each other.

I mentioned the solution there. Just have some of the switches upside down, like I believe some of the switches in the Phantom are. This resolves the issue of them being to close to each other and interfering.

If you do that, pads start going in mount holes, not exactly what you want to have.

You are right tho, it is possible to do that for the cluster I showed. Just my OCD will kill you and everyone else on this forum xD.

I think you start running into trouble with the modifiers if you allow for too many layouts. But 1.5-1-1.5 + 1.25-1.25-1.25 is ok.

Komar: Have you (or anyone) started laying this out in software?

[komar007]

Ok, so here is the demo of the first version of switch and stabilizer placement. It's messy, I know;). But the lines help if you look carefully.
I marked with arrows two places which aren't really good. I still have to think about them...



EDIT:
hazeluff: yes, what I present here is already in kicad.
Schematic is done for the controller, I only have to do the connections in the matrix and then route the board.

[jdcarpe]

Looking good so far. Those two areas will be tricky. Can't have the solder pads in mount holes.

[komar007]

Possible solution to both arrows:

In both cases the leftmost switch will have just one mounting pin (the other one is partially colliding with the solder pad of the middle switch), so the user will have to cut one support pin off...

[jdcarpe]

Works for me. I think most people will buy plates and use plate-mount switches, anyway. Don't forget the holes for the Caps Lock LED.

Edit: Also, we need to locate the mounting holes to mount the PCB to the case and include those on there.

[komar007]

I was thinking about adding 4 dipswitches, like in the poker, but this will be hard...
We have 26 - 1(reset) i/o pins. My current matrix is 14x5, so we have 6 pins left.
4 of them in PORTF are by default used by jtag, so that leaves us with 2 (unless we SPI-reprogram each unit, because the fuse bits can't be set via usb).
One goes for capslock, the second is unused.
But all in all, I think if the keyboard is programmable, we don't need dipswitches.


EDIT: what do you prefer: support for both center-stemmed and stepped caps-lock or LED under caps lock (only center-stemmed)? Both can't be done together.

[damorgue]

How much would it cost to add holes for leds on each switch? No traces, just holes so that one could, if they wanted to, wire them up manually.

[TheProfosist]

How much would it cost to add holes for leds on each switch? No traces, just holes so that one could, if they wanted to, wire them up manually.

why not traces also? I like leds even though theyll just make the caps glow.

[damorgue]

Because traces to each led would make the pcb much more complex? My suggestion was to just add the two extra holes so that the LED pins could go trough and be wired manually, if one would want that.

[IvanIvanovich]

Is it possible to just have led in switch for both caps positions? Then you can use windowed cap of either style caps lock? I think that would be ideal really if possible.
I am ambivalent about backlight support. If it can be added without a bunch of compromise, whatever. But I am not likely to make a use of it.

[Loligagger]

I'm very interested if the PCB could support the same layout as the poker (1.25 mods, 2.75 right shift, etc). Does the teensy allow for fn locks like what the poker has (or other such toggles like on the pure)?

Could mount plates be cut out of acrylic as well? It'd be neat to be able to see the PCB through the plate itself.

[dirge]

I was also looking to.do.something like this so happy that people with time and ability are doing it

Calling this phantom, does that mean the design philosophy is the same? A way to use cherry caps without the need for moogles?

[komar007]

How much would it cost to add holes for leds on each switch? No traces, just holes so that one could, if they wanted to, wire them up manually.

why not traces also? I like leds even though theyll just make the caps glow.

Cost probably wouldn't be high, but having 450+ drills I'm starting to wonder how this will influence rigidity of the board.
Some time ago I was designing a poker-sized kb with full backlighting, where you could set each key separately and this was crazy.
I'm afraid that with this number of holes and such complexity, especially on the bottom row, wiring the LEDs will be horrible.

Also take into account, that to do proper backlighting we also need 60+ resistors for the LEDs, 2 additional ICs (ULN or whatever darlington arrays) and some transistors to do the multiplexing. Of course we don't have enough pins, so this means either go for a crazy 8x8 matrix, which I have already done and I know it's very messy or 2 extra serial buffers (that would be 5 ICs, rather not doable).

If we don't do proper backlighting, but simply all on/all off, then this gets better, but it still needs a resistor for each LED and some more traces.

Just holes - there's no problem to add them, but one has to solder all of them from the back. The only problem is number of holes. I don't know...

Is it possible to just have led in switch for both caps positions?

For caps backlighting, the switches have to be in regular position (LED at the bottom, to shine through the window). If I put them like this, one of the solder pads overlaps with the mounting hole of the second switch.

Even if I rotate the switches, like I did in modifier section, and allow the LED to be in a weird position, something will always overlap...

Does the teensy allow for fn locks like what the poker has (or other such toggles like on the pure)?

The teensy allows for whatever you program it;)
There are already a few controller firmwares  for the teensy that can do a lot, and I'm writing one which will be reprogrammable without recompilation and reflashing. We'll see.

[damorgue]

Is it possible to just have led in switch for both caps positions?

For caps backlighting, the switches have to be in regular position (LED at the bottom, to shine through the window). If I put them like this, one of the solder pads overlaps with the mounting hole of the second switch.
(Attachment Link)
Even if I rotate the switches, like I did in modifier section, and allow the LED to be in a weird position, something will always overlap...

http://deskthority.net/resources/image/1900
It interferes with the hole for the siwtch as you can see there, but it worked in the Phantom.


@dirge: With the Phantom, you can solder the switches of the keys affected either in the center or off center. I suppose if the design is copied this will be the same.

[komar007]

@dirge: With the Phantom, you can solder the switches of the keys affected either in the center or off center. I suppose if the design is copied this will be the same.

The design won't be copied from Phantom, because it's too different. I'm only using Phantom as a reference here and there.
As for cherry caps, I think there should be no problem. The poker supports cherry (I have imsto's thick pbts on it (which are the same profile, aren't they?) and they fit), and our keyboard supports poker as one of the options... Am I missing something?


EDIT: I added both capslock positions with LEDs, I'm assuming this overlapping solder pad won't be a problem...

[dirge]

Sorry I should be clearer mate   I wasn't saying the design would be the same but the main aim of the project.  The phantom main goal was to use a set of cherry caps on the board without the need to get keys from sig plastics.

[komar007]

Sorry I should be clearer mate   I wasn't saying the design would be the same but the main aim of the project.  The phantom main goal was to use a set of cherry caps on the board without the need to get keys from sig plastics.

I'm not really an expert in cherry caps, but I think it should be doable. Maybe someone can look at this and give an opinion.
I'll do the mounting holes for the poker case and publish something.

[komar007]

The basic layout is done, I've drawn poker-compatible mounting holes and capslock LEDs for both capslock options.
Now I need a USB connector and I can start routing.
Which connector do you want? Maybe micro B... They're rated for 2x more cycles than mini...
Anyway, we have to decide for a particular part number...

Also, are we really having this machine-assembled? Do you know how much they charge for small orders? Because I've never done that.

[damorgue]

Am I the only one that likes larger USB types? They never break at all.

Type B anyone, type B, B for president, anyone?

[komar007]

I prefer type B too, but it won't fit to the slot in the poker case...

[The_Beast]

How hard would it be to add a USB port onto this (to plug in a number pad)?

[damorgue]

How hard would it be to add a USB port onto this (to plug in a number pad)?

Very easy because all you need is to wire another port to the incoming port to make a primitive USB hub.

[The_Beast]

Then we should do it!

[damorgue]

You will need a second hole in the case though.